Bitnation Releases Marriage App, Smart Love, on Ethereum Blockchain

Susanne Tarkowski Tempelhof, CEO and Founder of Bitnation, about a new application on the Ethereum Blockchain called Smart Love that allows anyone anywhere in the world to get married without the involvement of the nation state.

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In fact, the application has been entered into the ongoing Ethereum Hackathon. Intrigued about this application, Cointelegraph spoke to Susanne Tarkowski Tempelhof, CEO and founder of Bitnation.

Cointelegraph: Could you explain the rationale behind Smart Love?

Susanne Tarkowski: We wanted a simple and fun end user application to focus energy around building the Pangea Jurisdiction. Marriage is an ideal candidate because there’s a real need for it in the LGBT, inter-faith and polyamorous communities around the world, and most components you need to create a functional jurisdiction can be found in a robust marriage contract - like the ability to choose code of law, arbitrator, create an escrow, sign and timestamp the contract, etc.

CT: You got married on the Bitnation platform, was it an experimentation of Smart Love?

ST: I would say everything we’ve done up till now - the ID, Public Notary, Citizen and Embassy Networks, etc - has been an experiment/early proof-of-concept of the Pangea Jurisdiction. A testing ground, if you like. The marriage itself is serious, James and I are very committed to each other - and to Bitnation. We just moved from the UK to Amsterdam together and got a beautiful puppy.

CT: Why is it that Smart Love wants to establish moderate barriers to entry and tough barriers to exit?

ST: You can have a relationship with someone without getting married. The purpose of marriage is really security — the knowledge that the time, energy and emotions you invest into building something together is a worthwhile undertaking — particularly if you intend to do ‘high-risk’ things, such as purchase real estate or have children together. Therefore it’s good to have a moderate barrier to entry — so people can’t just do it Vegas style night out - but it actually has to go through a process.

The marriage must be possible to end, of course, but it should come with some considerable hassle, so people don’t simply walk out and give up on it because of a minor obstacle. You could compare it with the process of getting a tattoo - though obviously tattoos don’t have much emotional, logistical or financial effects on your life.

CT: Any particular reason Bitnation chose to have Smart Love on the Ethereum Blockchain?

ST: Because Ethereum is optimised for Smart Contracts, which is a key requirement for the Pangea Jurisdiction. However, once Rootstock is more evolved, we hope to be compatible with Rootstock and the Bitcoin Blockchain as well.

CT: How do you see Smart Love’s chances in the Ethereum Hackathon?

ST: I’m not very concerned about winning — that’s not why we are participating in . Our aim is to leverage the energy and infrastructure of the camp to engage the community in a meaningful conversation on what’s required for a Blockchain jurisdiction, and use Smart Love as a fun and tangible way to create a demo end user application for it.

Below is an outline of some of the main components in the longer Smart Love writeup, which Bitnation would like to use to start a community wide discussion about:

Wikipedia defines a jurisdiction as the practical authority granted to a legal body to administer justice within a defined area of responsibility. Pangea addresses four core elements of the administration of justice:

Codes of Law (CoL)

Refer to an existing code of law (e.g. Common Law, Sharia Law or Civil Code), or upload your own code of law